


The Rooster Files

by Phrankster



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Action & Romance, F/M, Lost Love, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28032879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrankster/pseuds/Phrankster
Summary: James "Rooster" Barnes has been living by himself in the Canadian wilderness for most of the 7 years, that have passed since the zombie apocalypse swept the earth. The one thing that keeps him going is the thought that he will someday be reunited with his lost love Janey. It seems almost impossible, but then again even the impossible can happen sometimes. A dramatic horror story with a romantic heart, that also adds in a few characters from the TV series along the way.
Kudos: 1





	1. The Ghost of Janie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting to know the Rooster

**PART 1**

**WHY AM I STILL HERE?**

_\- Ain´t found a way to kill me yet,_   
_Eyes burn with stinging sweat_   
_Seems every path leads me to nowhere_   
**_"Rooster" by Alice in Chains._ **

"Another seven down, five billion to go", Rooster thought to himself, as he looked at the five dead, he had just put down with his machete. It´s strange to think that there was a time, when they scared the hell out of him. These slow, dumb things? They moved faster at first, he remembered that much, but if the powers that be hadn´t screwed things up as bad as they did, then most of the world wouldn´t have gone to hell.

  
How long had it been? Five, six years? I could be more or less, for all he knew. Time had stopped being a concept, he cared about so long ago, that he couldn´t even remember, when that was. Winters had come and gone, followed by summers and then another winter. Whether it was monday or friday, april or june didn´t matter, except that it was easier to get food during the summer and the dead were slower during the winter. Those few dead that were left around this area of the forest anyway. He had thought that taking them all down would be impossible, but once foraging for food stopped being an option, it became about who gets what little food is available. Animals had slowly started to come back to the woods, to the point where he hadn´t had to eat anything nasty looking in a long time. Before that, when the dead still roamed around there, he was on the verge of starving to death. Once that survival instinct kicks in, you can do things, you never thought, you would be able to. Some of them still creep in from time to time, but no more than he could easily manage. The seven he had seen today were most he had seen at one time, for a good while at least.

  
It used to be, that he was just like everyone else, living their lives by what time it was or what day of the week it was. You have to be at your shitty job at this time, the lunch break, that flies by in a moment, is at this time, you take a shit around this time every day, jerk off before going bed at a reasonable time, so you´re not useless the day after. Get me home, get me stoned was his motto, so he could deal with how dreary it was in Dumpsville, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, USA. When he finally got to the weekend, it was about getting drunk ASAP and seeing if he could score with Janie. She was always ready for a little of the old in/out, if he got her wasted enough, that she could forget about how crappy her own life was.  
They had known each other, since they were kids and everyone knew that her step-dad was a real piece of dirt, who would beat her and her mom for the slightest thing. It wasn´t until he beat her mom half to death, that the scumbag was put behind bars. Janie had a real hard time trusting guys, because of what he did to her. Two months later, he was stabbed to death in the big house and he had been with her, when she urinated on his grave, in the middle of the night, after they´d shared a bottle of Vodka. She never told him, if that piece of human waste did other things to her, but it wouldn´t surprise him one bit. That was probably why they didn´t work as a couple, no matter how much they both wanted it to and ended up with a kind of friends with benefits deal in stead.

  
It was a screwed up relationship between two messed up people and they knew it, but it was still better than not getting any. They had agreed that it was no strings attached, but he had only slept with one other girl and it had felt like he was cheating on her, so he couldn´t cum and faked it, just to get it over with. He was almost sure, that she hadn´t wanted to be with anyone else either, even if he did know a few guys, she had given head to for money. He didn´t like it, but he couldn´t say anything about it, since she wasn´t breaking any of their rules. He knew, that she barely made living wage at the factory, she had to work at and that it was probably the only way, she could make a little extra. In a small town with no jobs and no future, you do what you can to survive, eat crap and learn to love the taste of it. When they were growing up, they both thought that they would be out of there, the moment school ended. but reality got in the way of that. She was tough as nails, though and he had plenty of reason to hope that somehow, she´d made it.

  
Hell, the reason he hadn´t snuffed himself years ago, was mostly the thought, that he would find her and hold her again. He didn´t remember how anyone else looked anymore, not in detail anyway, but he still remembered where every birthmark on her body was, the look on her face, when she had a huge orgasm and the sweet sound of her laughter, that would always make him laugh along with her. The last time he had seen her, was when he shipped out for basic training, a month before everything fell apart and the whole shit house went up in flames. They had sex the day before and he had promised her, that he would be careful and that it wouldn´t be the last time, she saw him. Most promises don´t mean anything. Hell, he´d lied to teachers and bosses more times than he could count, when he promised them, that he wouldn´t turn up looking like something the cat dragged in again. This was the one promise he had made, that he had meant with all his heart. As dumb as it might sound, it felt like the hope of fulfilling it to her, was the only reason he had left, to go on living.


	2. From Dumpsville With Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Rooster got to where he is now

He had arrived at the army thinking, that it would at least be a step up from what he came from. What he had found was a mix of dickheads with over sized egos and a bunch of jackasses, who couldn´t wipe their own butts, unless someone gave them clear instructions on how to. Somehow he managed to find two sensible ones among the bunch, Jared, who came from Philly and Tre, an African American kid from Scranton. It was Jared and Tre, who had given him the nickname Rooster, after he had sung and played the Alice in Chains song of the same name on guitar for them. Within a few days, it was what everyone called him and his drill sergeant even started calling him private Rooster soon after. He decided to keep it after they died in their honor and because he felt like it was a name he had earned, unlike the one, his dead beat parents had given him.

The three of them first agreed that Corporal Jackson, an ass kisser to those above him, who we couldn´t think for himself, if his life depended on it, should be called Corporal Jack-Ass. It wasn´t long until they found out, that they had much more in common than just that. All three had parents with no money, who drank their minds out on a regular basis. They had all left girls behind back home, that they would much rather be with than taking orders from guys, who looked like the same guys, who made the High School years hell on them. Most importantly, none of them actually wanted to fight in a war. There were others in their squadron, who were all gung ho about going out and shooting the head off of someone, now they had permission to. He hoped, that those guys got their fill of it, before they ended of as breakfast, lunch or dinner for the dead.

The first weeks weren´t anything special, since they were among those last in line to be sent to the front lines. It was about a week after they started, that they started hearing rumors, that something big was going on and that soldiers were being shipped out to hot spots right and left. The Corporals were quick to fill the heads of the privates with lies, so those above them didn´t have to. Until two days before they were shipped out, the official word to them was, that everything was under control. One private, who wouldn´t shut up about it, suddenly disappeared from day to day and wasn´t seen again. His squad mates were told, that he had deserted, but they all knew, that desertion had become close to impossible. No one spoke aloud about it after that.

To say, that they weren´t prepared for what was to come was an understatement of epic proportions. The three of them had been unlucky enough to be under Corporal Jack-Ass, who didn´t have a clue what to do, when communications to the command center went down. The Jack-Ass refused to belive, that the command center could have been overrun, because in his mind, the US military was an invincible force. A few hours later, he either ran off to tell on them to his superiors or simply ran away, when it became clear that the mood had turned against him and a mutiny was about to take place. They never saw him again, which no one cried over, since he would have got all of them killed, if they had given him any more time in command.

The so-called defense was already in shambles, when they got to the front and in less than two days, it had turned into an all out retreat, with everyone trying to save themselves. Rooster and his two friends got away with eleven of their squad mates, but a week later, they were down to five, after they twice had been cornered by a herd of the dead. Those first weeks came with many hard lessons, but those that lived through it, quickly found out what to do and what not to do. Now, he would never have made the mistakes, they made back then, but he knew that most of them were made, because they were sleep deprived, starving and weren´t capable of thinking clearly. They eventually decided to head North and hide out in the Canadian forests, until the dead died out, so to speak.

Getting there wasn´t easy though, and by the time they reached the border, it was only Rooster, Tre and Jared left. Tre died from an infection a short while later and Jared had to be put down, after one of the dead had bit him in the neck. Rooster and him hugged goodbye, he closed his eyes and Rooster did, what needed to be done, while the tears streamed down both of their faces. The only other people he had met, tried to shoot him and he had to run away from them. When he finally found an old lodge in the middle of the forest and settled in, it had felt like a hollow victory. It had been years since he had last talked to someone and he sometimes wondered, if he had any social skills anymore, should he need them. The chances that anyone living would find him out there were slim to none, but he still woke up every day hoping, that this would be the day, when he did. He had thought about going off to look for Janie, but where do you start? There was just as much chance, that she´d find him by some incredibly lucky accident.


	3. The Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rooster´s life gets turned upside down.

Rooster´s daily routine hadn´t changed for years. He got up around the same time every morning, though usually a little later in the winter and ate his breakfast, usually consisting of fried potatoes and dried meat or fish. He got the potatoes from his garden and the meat or fish were from whatever his traps had managed to catch that day. In the beginning there were often dead, who walked into them, which was a pestilence because it meant he had to thoroughly clean them, before he could use them again, but that hadn´t happened in a while.

  
After breakfast, he did the same four mile walk around the area to check the traps. If he had gotten very lucky, then he would sometimes have to take several trips back to the house, which he didn´t mind, since it passed more time that way. After he had collected the days loot, he would put the nicest catch aside and prepare the rest for drying. One thing, he had learned from the first years, was to have as much food as possible in reserve, because he wouldn´t catch much in the winter. After eating his dinner, meat with potatoes again, though this time with much tastier meat, he would read one of the 19 books, that he had been lucky enough to find on his travels. He had read all of them three or four times already, but it was the only entertainment he had and they had probably helped him from going insane. Once it became dark, he went off to bed.

  
Winter was coming soon though and he wasn´t in as much of a hurry to go out, since he knew from experience that takings would be slim. That was okay, though. He had enough of a storage to feed three people for an entire winter and more than enough firewood to keep them warm, if he had to. The first snow had fallen the night before and it looked very cold out there, which didn´t help with his motivation. After taking his time with his breakfast, he stepped out into a chilling cold. The forest was a gorgeous sight in the winter, but the cold up there could be brutal. Snow was still gently falling from the sky, so he decided to get it done as fast as possible, before the layer got so thick, that it would be hard to get through. There had been several times, where it had been impossible and he never knew, when that time would come.

  
He had 14 traps to check, two of which were for fish down by the stream. He had put all of them together himself, except for a bear trap, he had been lucky enough to find. His first traps had been of varying quality and if a professional trap maker had seen them, then he probably would have laughed his ass off. He had perfected them over the years through trial and error and in the summer in particular, they were very effective. 80 percent of what he caught was fish, followed by rabbits, squirrels and on very rare occasions a small beaver, that got into one of his fish traps. The first traps hadn´t been touched, but there were three salmon in his fish traps, so he wasn´t too unhappy about it. After gutting them and bagging them, he went on his way to check the rest. Just when he was thinking to himself, that it probably wasn´t worth it, he heard something, that he hadn´t heard in years. The sound of a child screaming, a girl from what he could tell. He dropped his bag and ran towards the sound, machete in hand and ready to charge.

  
The trap was almost a quarter of a mile away and he ran as fast as his legs could carry him. The sounds of the screaming kept getting louder, as his heart started beaten faster and harder. When he finally saw her, his motivation lept to maximum level. There was this little blonde girl, twelve years old at the most, very thin, with a boyish haircut and looking like she hadn´t had a bath in weeks, trying to hold off two dead with a stick, while her foot was stuck in one of his rabbit traps. Feeling that he should warn her, that he was human, he yelled out a loud roar, which also drew the attention of one of the dead away from her. He struck the machete right down the middle of it´s skull, just as the girl lost her balance and fell over. The last of the dead was almost over her, when he grabbed it by it´s pants and pulled it away from her. It didn´t take him many moments to slice it´s head in half and it fell to the ground.

  
The girl was crying in pain and he rushed to get her out of the trap.  
"Lie still", He said.  
She nodded and tried to lie still, while got the trap off her foot. Her ankle was bleeding, so he took one of the rags, he used to wrap his catches in, around it.  
"Thanks, mister", she said.  
"It´s been a while since I´ve seen anyone out here. Where did you come from?"  
"I was in a group, but I had to run away from them. It´s a long story", she replied with sadness on her face.  
He smiled at her and helped her to sit up.  
"Does it hurt a lot?", he asked her.  
"Yeah", she nodded.  
"I can help you, if you let me. I know that you shouldn´t trust just anyone, but I´m not someone to be afraid of. I feel bad, since it was my trap, you stepped in.", he told her.  
"I don´t think, I have much choice. I´m lucky, that you found me".  
"Can you walk?", he asked.  
"I can try", she replied.  
He offered her his hands and helped her to stand up. She winced in pain, but was trying not to show it. She shook her head at him, after she took a few steps though.  
"I can´t. It hurts too much", she said.  
"There´s only one thing for it. It´s lucky for me, that you´re small".  
He got down on his knees, so she could climb on his back. He grabbed her legs and stood up.  
"I have to get my bag of fish, before we go to my house. Hold on", he told her.  
"What´s you name?", she innocently asked him.  
"My old name was James, but everyone calls me Rooster", he told her.  
"I´m Becky. Pleased to meet you, Rooster", she replied and they smiled at each other. And so they started on their way down the creek to retrieve their dinner. For the first time in longer than he could remember, Rooster wouldn´t be eating it by himself and he couldn´t be more thrilled at the thought of it.


	4. Becky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Becky´s story.

Becky couldn´t remember the time before the apocalypse anymore. She was 12 now and had only been five, when it happened. It felt like she´d been on the run for most of her life, Whether it was from the past, the dead or the living, she always felt like she was running from something or someone.

  
She couldn´t remember her parents or her older brother that well anymore either. Her dad and her brother went out to forage for food one day, when she was six and they never saw them again. Before that, it had been the four of them through thick and thin, but without the other two, it was like her mom lost the will to live. One day, they were cornered by the dead, her mom told her to hide and she had to lie there and hear the sounds of her last relative being eaten, while trying to stay quiet as a mouse, as she had been told to.

  
She ran into a group that took her in, but she never felt safe with them. She overheard a few of them talking about taking control of the group by force and ran away, before the revolution attempt could take place. The next one seemed better, there was even a boy her own age to play with and she felt much safer with them. The same thing happened, that happened so many times though and she ended up having to run and hide. She never saw them again and survived on her own for a long time, until she ran into Janie and her group. At first she tried to hide from them, but they found her and she immediately had a good feeling about Janie. They explained to her that they were with a group called the collective, that would be glad to have her. Having no other choice and feeling good about Janie, she accepted the offer.

  
At first it seemed like everything she had been looking for. People working together for the common good and trying to create a new society. Their leader, Santoro, was a charismatic man, who told her everything she wanted to hear and took a liking to her. She lived there for five years, before she found out the truth. Janie was the first to hint to her, that girls were expected to become birthing machines, the moment they became old enough. She didn´t even know what sex was, but Janie explained it to her and warned her that it wouldn´t be long, until it became expected of her. When her teacher found out, that she´d had her first period, Janie started getting really worried, since she knew that the commanders would be told. One day in the middle of class, she was pulled out and brought to a doctor, who examined her privates and introduced her to a boy, only a little older than herself, who was going to impregnate her. She was then told bluntly, when it would happen the day after. When she told Janie, they quickly made up an escape plan and ran away that same night, with little more than the clothes on their backs.

  
They tried fleeing north and thought, that they were far enough away, when Santoro´s thugs caught up with them, a dozen miles or so, from where she was now. Janie allowed herself to get caught, so she could cause a diversion and Becky could slip away unseen. She ran for as long and as fast, as she could, until her legs couldn´t carry her anymore. After a group of dead had cut off her road, she ran into the forest, but quickly got lost. Scared, freezing and hungry, she prayed for a miracle and that same day, she met Rooster. Life had taught her to be wary of people, but had also given her a great sixth sense, when it came to them. It told her, that Rooster wasn´t too different from Janie and in her opinion, that was in no way a bad thing. She was very worried about, what would happen to her, though. Janie was after all, the closest she´d had to a mom, since her own died.


	5. A New Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rooster and Becky get to know each other a little better.

Rooster had been a little afraid, that he had found a girl, who talked all the time, like girls her age sometimes do. That would have been too much, after all that time by himself. He was pleased to find out that Becky was a girl, who could also enjoy the quiet. After he got her back to his house, cleaned up her wound and bandaged it, they ate dinner together and boy, could that girl eat! It was clear that she hadn´t eaten in a while and he was amazed that she could put so much food into such a small belly. They chit chatted a little and she complimented him on how good his food tasted, but he thought that he would wait with more questions, until she´d had the chance to get a good and safe night´s sleep. He lent her a book and let her use his bed, but she didn´t get more than a few pages into it, before she was fast asleep. He put an extra blanket over her to make sure, that she wouldn´t freeze, before making a makeshift bed out of some chairs for himself. He was usually a pretty fast reader, but on this night, he couldn´t concentrate on it and had to give it up. He kept playing out scenarios in his head, as to where this girl could have come from and it took him a lot longer to fall asleep, than it usually did.

  
He dreamt about Janie that night for the first time in a while. Not about things, that had already happened. He dreamt that they were fighting side by side with Becky against what seemed like an insummountable amount of the dead. She looked different from how he remembered her, she was older, had cut her hair short and was more muscular, but it was still clearly her. The three of them together, Becky included, who was carrying her part of the load, were an incredible fighting machine and they took down every single one of them, until there were mounts of bodies all around them. When he woke up, he wished that it had lasted a little longer, so he could have found out more from her.

  
Becky was still fast asleep, so he decided to let her sleep and kept as quiet as possible, while he went through his morning routines. He was almost done cooking breakfast, when she came into the kitchen, drowsily wiping her eyes.  
"Chow time again? Mmm", she said as she sat down.  
"Can you really eat again, after how you chowed down last night?", he asked teasingly.  
"That was the first meal, I´d had in three days. I was almost about to give up, when you found me", she told him.

He filled a plate with roasted potatoes a dried rabbit meat for her, which went down pretty fast, She leaned back in her chair with a satisfied look and rubbed her belly.

"Thanks. I won´t bother you for much longer. I´m sure, you don´t want me living here and eating all your food", she said.  
"That´s okay. There´s plenty of it, where it came from. You can stay here, for as long as you want".  
She smiled at him and he could see the gratitude in her eyes.  
"You remind me of my mom. Not my real one, I don´t really remember her, but the one, who´s become my mom. She´s kind, like you are", she told him.

It was something he´d thought a lot about, what had happened to all these children, who had been orphaned in the apocalypse. Dealing with it in your 20´s like he´d done, was hard enough, but having to do it as a kid must have been close to impossible. Many of them probably killed themselves out of desperation, if they weren´t lucky enough to find a new parent, like she had. He was glad to hear, that she had someone, who she loved and who loved her back the same way. If he could reunite her with this new mom, it would mean that at least he hadn´t wasted his life entirely, by living as a hermit in the middle of nowhere.

"Is your new mom still alive?", he enquired.  
She got a sad look on her face, as she pulled her legs up and hugged them.  
"I think so. There were some men after us and they caught up with us, a dozes miles or so, south of here. She averted their attention, so I could slip away unseen. I watched from afar, while they beat her up", she told him, while a few tears flowed from her eyes. She wiped her eyes in her sleeve and his heart went out to her.  
"I´d like to help you find her, but what makes you sure, that they didn´t kill her?, he asked, before immediately regretting that he used the K word in the situation.  
"Santoro wants her and me back. If nothing else, we can still be used to make babies".

He was shocked at what she said. She was just a little kid, for God´s sake! Even if she was physically capable of becoming pregnant, she was way too young to.

"That´s ...". He couldn´t even get the words out, with how sick it sounded to him.  
"Him and the other commanders say, that our part in the rebuilding of society is to have as many children, as we can. We ran away, when I found out that it had become my turn. I was supposed to be impregnated by a boy my own age the day after", she told him.

His brain tried to comprehend what it was hearing. The world needed to be rebuilt for sure, but turning children into baby making machines was as sick of an idea, as he had ever heard. It made him want to save all of them, even if he knew that it would be an impossible mission, if he was by himself. Becky was a tough kid, who had no doubt survived some crazy things, but the two of them didn´t exactly make up an army.

"Tell me about your mom. If I´m gonna find her, I have to know what to look for", he asked her.  
She shook her head and looked at him imploringly. "The collective is impossible to penetrate, if you don´t know it. If they catch you, they´ll kill you. Men aren´t given second chances, like we are", she told him.  
"I wouldn´t go in without a plan. I was in the army, before all this happened, you know?", he said, while looking into her innocent blue eyes. "I want to reunite you with her, or at least try to. I didn´t think at first, that I could clear this area of the dead, but you don´t see many of them around here, do you?".  
"Her name is Janie and she has short brown hair. She´s from Pennsylvania and ... what else can I tell you? She says that there´s a guy named Jimmy, that she looked for, before the collective found her", she explained to him.

His heart started beating faster, as she talked. Pretty much everyone had called him James and a few people J-Dog, but Janie had always called him Jimmy. This was almost too much of a coincidence.

"This Janie. Does she have a tattoo on her ankle?", he asked her.  
"She does. It´s an ..."  
"An eagle?"  
"How did you guess?"  
"I think, I know, which Janie you´re referring to", he said, as thoughts of reuniting with her filled his brain. Now that he knew where she was, there was no way that he wouldn´t try all he could, to get her out of that place.

THAT WAS THE END OF PART 1. I´VE PLANNED FOR THE STORY TO HAVE FIVE PARTS, WITH 5 CHAPTERS IN EACH. I HOPE, THAT YOU´VE ENJOYED IT SO FAR.


	6. Information is Key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rooster prepares to go on his mission

**THE ROOSTER FILES**

**PART 2**

**INFILTRATION**

_All our times have come_   
_Here, but now they're gone_   
_Seasons don't fear the reaper_   
_Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain_   
_"Don´t Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult_

**CHAPTER 6**   
**INFORMATION IS KEY**

Almost a week had passed, since Becky had come into Rooster´s life. He had to admit, that it was nice having company again after so long. Despite everything she had gone through, Becky was still a girl, who loved to laugh and as we all know, laughter is often the best medicine. He couldn´t remember the last time he had laughed before he met her (probably while his old buddies were still alive), but it felt great to do so again. They even shared the same dopey sense of humor, that he´d only be able to share with Janey before this. 

Playtime was coming to an end, though and he had formulated a plan, he thought might work. Becky would hide out here, since there was no way he could sneak her in undetected, while he would pose as a survivor, who had been living on his own for a long time. From what Becky had told him, they were always keen on bringing in more people to bolster their ranks and of course take part in the recreation of society. She´d also given him the low down on Santoro and his main henchmen, as well as a detailed description of the complex and where Janey could be imprisoned, if she was in fact imprisoned. There were still a ton of variables, which he wasn´t crazy about, but he couldn´t wait much longer.

The night before he was to take off, he gave her a lesson on how to skin animals and prepare them for drying. In the worst case scenario, she would have to take over this place and learn to survive, like he had. There was no doubt, that they were growing on each other and he didn´t want to leave her behind.

"Promise me, that you´ll be careful", she said, as she hung up a fish for drying in his shed.

"I´ll be as careful, as I can", he assured her, knowing that you can promise to be as careful, as you can, but it still might not make a difference. She had already warned him, that Santoro saw mean as being "expendable", since they couldn´t bear children.

"I hope, that the three of us can become a family", she replied as she looked at him with those baby blue, innocent eyes, he already couldn´t stand for.

"I do too, but you shouldn´t get your hopes up too high".

"I know, but I believe in you. If you find Janey, she can help you get out. Don´t worry about the others, just come back to me".

"I was in the army, you know?", he told her as he wondered, how much his past experience would actually be an advantage to him. He´d had plenty of combat training, when they were fighting the dead, but he had never had to kill someone living. His drill sergeant had told him, how it changed people and how taking the second one, was a lot easier than the first. Would he be able to do it, if and when the time came? There was also the question of his acting abilities, but right now, they were the least of his problems.

They chatted gleefully at dinner and tried to pretend, that it might not be the last time, they ate together. When he went to sleep, it was with the thought that he would soon be holding Janey again, on his mind. The ominous thought, that he would be found out and executed, was too tough to deal with. It wasn´t that he was afraid to die, but he wasn´t longing for it anymore, like he had for a while, when he thought he was losing his mind. Now he had something important to live for.


	7. Back to Life, Back to reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rooster makes his way towards The Collective and encounters trouble on the way

He hugged Becky goodbye the morning after (they hadn´t hugged before. It just seemed like the natural thing to do) and headed south. She had given him pretty detailed descriptions of the ares, where Santoro´s patrols scouted for possible survivors and took out the waning amount of dead, that were left up here. He had to memorize it, so they went over it several times, until he was pretty sure, he could remember it loosely, when he would need to. The big question was how to do it. Just walking up to them made it seem suspicious, like he knew what he was looking for. He also made sure not to have too much food with him, or it would be a dead giveaway, when they were sure to look through his belongings. He had plenty of time to think about it, since it would be almost a days journey by foot to reach the border.

He was a little worried about being cornered by a herd of the dead, before he got there. After all, it´s hard to help someone, if you´ve been eaten by someone else. Another part was weirdly looking forward to fighting them again. It seemed like second nature by now to take one down, the moment he saw it. When the question is, whether they eat your catches or you do, it doesn´t become a question anymore. That part of him was slightly disappointed, since he only ran into a few dozen on the way and never more than one at a time. The days, when one of them caused a challenge for him were so far behind him, that he could barely remember it and taking them down were easy as pie.

His biggest challenge was how little he remembered from the area, he was walking through. It had been a long time, but he still thought, he would remember more than he did. Twice, he ended up going around in circles and wasting several hours in doing so. He didn´t have a whole lot of daylight to work with and getting caught out in these woods in the dead of night in these temperatures, would be more dangerous than facing a hundred dead on your own. He had brought his old sleeping bag, but having a roof over his head would be paramount to surviving. Seeing that the sun was beginning to set, he checked his compass and headed straight west, towards the main road. It would cost him half a day, but he had better chances of finding shelter this way.

It didn´t take him more than an hour or so to reach the road, but he was at the same time in a place, he had never been before. Blind luck was pretty much all he had to hope for, so he said a silent prayer to himself. It had worked for Becky, so why not give it a shot? Darkness began to set in and the already cold temperatures dipped lower, with a cold chill not making things easier. He could barely see anything anymore and was thinking about taking his chances out in the open, when the outlines of a car abandoned by the side of the road came into view. He quickened his pace and when he reached it, he saw that it was an old Camaro. There was barely any daylight left, so he knocked on the windows to check it for a dead, who was perhaps trapped in there. Not hearing anything, he checked the door and was filled with relief, when it opened. He got in and closed the door behind him. The smell was nasty, like that of putrid meat, but it was still better than sleeping outside. He got into his sleeping bag and pulled it all the way over his head, so his breath could warm it up.

The morning after, he realized where the smell came from. Right next to him in the passenger seat was the corpse of a woman, with a knife hole in the side of her head. Maggots had eaten away most of her flesh long ago, but her clothes were still intact, albeit caked in old, dried up blood. Who knows, how long ago she died, he wondered to himself, as he was suddenly filled with sympathy for her. This happened sometimes, when he had taken down one of the dead. The feeling that this one victim is the symbol of everything, that happened to the people of the world. Maybe it wasn´t like this everywhere. It had been long enough, that they probably had things under control in some places of the world. He hoped to himself, that at least she hadn´t suffered too much and been with a loved one, when she went. To most people, that´s all they could have asked for.

After leaving his companion for the night, he looked at his compass and headed straight south. He hoped to reach a patrol by mid-day and get the first part of the plan over with. It was time to see, if it would sink or swim.


	8. The Outskirts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rooster reaches the outskirts and tries to find, what he´s looking for

The army hadn´t taught Rooster much in the way of espionage, so he mostly went by what he remembered from movies, he had seen growing up, as well as his own common sense. The key was to be believable to the core, or it would be game over in an instant. The plan was to pretend, that he was slightly crazy, both to stop them from asking too many questions and since it would be natural, for someone who had lived for months or years on their own in this crazy world. He remembered the feelings he himself had, when he reached his lowest a few years earlier. There´s no explanation as to why, it all of a sudden came over him. One day, he just started thinking dark thoughts and gave up hope. That winter had been spent forcing himself to go on living, until it started to go away again in the spring, as suddenly as it had started. He also considered using a fake name, but what point would there be to it? Names didn´t mean anything in this world anymore, anyway.

When he reached a small diner by the side of the road, he remembered that Becky had told him about a place like this. It was where her and Janey had hidden out, when Santoro´s men had caught Janey and Becky had been forced to run off. It wasn´t unthinkable, that they would have people here, in case she came back. He cautiously approached it, but saw no sign of life in there. It could give him shelter from the weather at least and give him the chance to sit down on a chair to eat. Most of the windows had been long shot out, but it strangely reminded him of when things were normal and people went to these places to eat and enjoy themselves. The door was hanging by what remained of it´s hinges, but was easy to get through. He had just sat down, when he was surprised to hear voices coming from the back room.

"Damn, it´s cold!".

"Quit complaining!".

Rooster just managed to turn around in time to see Dale and Tucker, two men in their early 30´s being just as surprised to see him, as he was to see them. He quickly put his hands up.

"I don´t want any trouble", was all he could think of saying. Dale and Tucker aimed their guns at him and slowly approached him.

"Are you armed?", Tucker asked, looking more scared of him, than he was of them.

"Only my knife". He pulled it from it´s sheath and put it on the table. It was a nice one with a mahogany handle, he had found in a house, he had hidden out in long ago. He put it on the table and made it clear, that he wasn´t going to fight back.

"That´s a nice knife", Dale said, as he nervously smiled at Rooster.

"That´s a nice gun", Rooster replied.

"It was my dad´s".

"We´re with a group called the collective. Have you heard of us?"

"Should I have?", Rooster replied, as he tried to look as innocent as possible. Thankfully these two didn´t look like the hardest guys in the world to fool.

Tucker and Dale looked at each other and silently agreed, that Rooster seemed harmless enough.


	9. Buddies For Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tale of Dale and Tucker

Dale and Tucker had been like two peas in a pod, since they were kids. Both of their stories were pretty much the same. Dads, who were truck drivers and away most of the time, coupled with a pair of moms, who had an affinity for the sauce. They grew up right across the street from each other in Dover, Delaware and might as well have been brothers.

School didn´t agree with either of them, so they dropped out before their senior year, to go and work in the Canadian logging industry. This was more the life for them and the fact that they could now buy alcohol legally, just added to the fun. Girls came and went, but they always had each other and as long as that was the case, they were perfectly fine with it. The money kept rolling in and the days passed by in an instant. They went back to Delaware every year for Christmas and felt like, they were seen as modestly successful back there. No one had any expectations of them, so just the fact that they were thriving and holding down steady, more or less well paying jobs, was seen as a success in itself. They had even been talking about starting up something of their own, when the dead started taking over the world and what job you had, didn´t matter anymore.

They had an advantage, in that they were far away from most of the rest of civilization, when the initial onslaught took place. Huddled around the radio, they and their workmates would hear about these horrible things, they couldn´t believe were actually happening. A few of the guys on their crew even believed that it was some sort of massive hoax, until reality hit them square in the face, the first time they were faced with a herd of the dead. Their initial thought was to run and that probably saved their lives, since they never saw any of their old work comrades again. Not long after, they met a small group led by a woman named Betsy, that they stayed with for the next months. Good things don´t last forever and one bad decision from Betsy was all it took, to leave them on their own again. It had taught them a thing or two about survival in the new world, though and they would put those skills to good use over the next months, until they ran into Santoro and his fledgling group by chance.

At that time, there was only twelve of them, following the vision of a man with a dream of rebuilding to society to what it was. Someone who managed to make them believe, that it was actually possible to do so, at a time when it still seemed impossible to most survivors, who were fighting to make it through another day. That he wanted to unite people, was what convinced them, that he was worth following. Their group grew little by little and when they merged with another, almost as large group, they became a force to be reckoned with. Other small groups in the area were forced, either by free will or the threat of extinction, to join them and by the time they had their first anniversary of moving into the old warehouse, they were already up to over a hundred and controlled the surrounding area completely. A few dozen usurpers had tried to start a takeover within the group a few years later, but were foiled and all of them were publicly executed. Since then, no one had dared to stand up to Santoro, even if they wanted to.

At the end of the day, Dale and Tucker had been raised to see things in a practical way. They didn´t like all of Santoro´s plans, but what was their alternative? He had agreed to make them scouts, which suited them fine, since it got them away from the hustle and bustle of the complex and gave them plenty of freedom, while still having the same protection as the others, should they need it. In the rare event, that they met someone, a little food was usually enough to make them friendly, if they weren´t already. They knew, what very few else knew, however. That the supply of bullets had started running low a long time ago and they had been carrying around empty guns for months. They were still good for scaring people with. But if someone actually attacked them, they would be useless.


	10. The Collective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rooster is taken to the complex and gets his first impression of it

Rooster quickly got to like Dale and Tucker, who were a pair of talkative and down to earth types. Here he was expecting to surrender to some borderline psycho, who may or may not put a bullet in his head right away. In stead he found a pair of guys from Delaware, who weren´t that different from most of the guys, he grew up with. As they approached the complex however, he started getting a knot in his belly. This had clearly been an former industrial area, with several warehouses and factories located close to each other. The whole thing had been encapsuled by a concrete wall, topped with barbed wire, that looked rather new and was probably made from supplies found in one of the abandoned factories.

They came up to the gate and were let in right away. Seeing so many people gathered together, men, women and children, was a culture shock, he wasn´t ready for. Most of them looked thin, on the verge of starving, but still mostly healthy looking. As he wondered how they managed to feed all these people, it hit him that everyone was no older than 50, at the most. Where were all the old people? Did they not fit into Santoro´s vision of a new, perfect world?

He was taken to a small, sparsely furnished room by Dale and Tucker and told to wait. They said their goodbyes and they wished him luck. Shortly after, a pregnant mid-teen girl opened the door and stared lazily at him.

"Are you hungry?", she asked him.

"A little. What is this place?"

"Dale and Tucker didn´t tell you?".

"Only the main parts. I´m pretty impressed with it".

"It is what it is", she sadly replied. She was young, but it was obvious that she had a sad wisdom to her, like someone who´s already lived through more, than she should have.

"Is it okay, if I ask you, what your name is?"

"I´m Megan".

"They call me Rooster", he said, which got a chuckle out of her.

"I´m not sure, I want to know why, they call you that!", she laughed and seemed to warm up to him. "How does a shower, a shave and a good meal sound to you?"

"Like the best thing, I could have asked for".

"The Chosen One will want to meet you later. He probably has tons of questions to ask. Come with me"

He followed after her and studied the details of his new temporary home intently, as Megan led him through it. He wanted to ask her a million things, but figured that it was best to wait, until he had gotten to know her a little better. One thing, that was becoming painfully obvious, was that his plan to get Janey out wouldn´t be an easy one to fulfill. Everywhere he looked, there was an armed guard and with his limited and rusty combat experience, there would be no way, he would be able to do it alone. He needed allies.

**THAT´S IT FOR PART 2! AS ALWAYS, YOUR THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED.**


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